Bekir boyacı/en
It was the year 1969. Zeki SARI and I, Bekir BOYACI, had just finished primary school, and with the enthusiasm of the time we had let our hair grow a little. A photographer was walking around Ömeranlı with his camera, calling out to children and young people and offering to take souvenir pictures. We wanted one badly, but we had no money in our pockets. The photographer understood our situation, smiled, and said, “Bring me two eggs and I’ll take your picture.” Those words sounded both strange and appealing to us; money was hard to find back then, but eggs were among the small treasures of village life.
So I went home and, without my mother knowing, took two eggs. That was a child’s mind: the excitement of having a keepsake photograph outweighed everything else. We brought the eggs, and he took this picture. Many years passed, with many times and many people, but that photograph did not remain only the picture of two children. It kept within it the shyness of poverty, the courage of childhood, the simplicity of village life, and the great value of the tiny price paid to make a memory last forever. Now, whenever one looks at that photograph, one both smiles and feels a slight ache inside.